


If I am awake this time, I'll know (And I won't mind at all)

by ImberReader



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Absolutely shameless use of the italicized Oh, Alternate Universe - Regency, And truly do we need anything else?, F/M, First Meetings, Homesickness, Implied Past Lives, It's just one big excuse to write some introspective emotion & landscape porn, Jaime falls in love with Tarth before he even meets Brienne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/pseuds/ImberReader
Summary: There has been little constant in Jaime's life beside the search, the homesickness for something he can't even picture. But coming to Tarth is an unexpected revelation and as the months go by, he grows more and more certain this will be enough. It has to be.And then he meets the person he didn't even know he was waiting for.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 75





	If I am awake this time, I'll know (And I won't mind at all)

**Author's Note:**

> Although it's not been that long since I posted something on this account, it has been a long time since I wrote something. I didn't know if I'd be posting anything anymore and, in some ways, I still don't know. But at least now I know with the right prompt, I can surface.
> 
> This time, thanks go to the Anonymous who prompted "hiraeth - a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past" which is absolutely one of my favorite words ever, I _can't_ pass up a chance to explore that.
> 
> So, enjoy! Frantically written and not beta-d. We embarrass ourselves publicly like men. You can find me on [tumblr](https://scoundrels-in-love.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thank you to [Nire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nire/pseuds/nire), [Slips](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipsthrufingers/pseuds/slipsthrufingers) and [PrettyThief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyThief) who wrangled me into finishing this.
> 
> Title from [The Shore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URoFxZNTBdQ) by Basia Bulat that I've been dying to use for title and absolutely didn't do justice for.

Jaime hadn’t been shipwrecked and cast onto Tarth's shores, but he might as well have been, with the odd sense of wonder that fills him as he cranes his neck to peer at the cliff faces that give little way to a rocky beach, as if pebble by pebble Tarth has reclaimed land from sea's unending touch, with sheer determination, like its people create houses and turn them into homes upon the rock.

A castaway might feel fear and longing for their home once the marvel of feeling land beneath their feet wanes, but instead, Jaime feels as if he's been castaway his whole life and finally arrived at the gates of his home. The great, sharp gates that lead onto a steep and sometimes narrow path toward the clifftop that he has walked through a hundred times and still feels humbled and welcomed by.

He climbs slowly, because he has nowhere to be right now, other than this moment and this familiar journey upward. And yet, it is still opposite of the aimless days and months he has known before Tarth. Being here is _being_ , in a way that aches as much as it soothes, from the early morning sun carving its way through the clouds as he works the land, wind swirled evenings spent on docks or in Davos' inn or the longing that's on cusp of being fulfilled, but all the more aching for that, that fills him when he is here.

Finally, he reaches the top, hauls his gaze over the even page of clifftop, though its edges are greatly torn and moves toward one of the further ledges, leaning directly over the sea in a far reach. He would call it desperate, but what can a cliff be desperate for, when it holds its opposite in gentle grasp?

From up here, he sees the port and the town to the North with its beach line that he had followed to the base of these cliffs, deeper inland where the Evenfall Hall lays with the villages that have scattered around it, like crumbs of its marble walls sprouting seeds of homes. He knows the little paths connecting them, can spy his own house and plot of land that will bear his feeble farming attempts this year. It’s not the view he needs, right now.

He looks ahead, instead. To the vanishing line of the horizon where the gray of the sky and sea reach to mingle together, though the grey veil fails to imitate the shifting waves below, try as it might. And it does _try_ , shedding streaks of grays from misty white to muted storm almost-black that take up the rest of the sky, gradually toward the meeting point.

The wind tears at his clothes, bites through the unbuttoned shirt collar like a jealous lover -- no, it does not deserve the comparison. And though the thought is fleeting, he already feels his sense of peace wobbling to the side, like stacks of pebbles built to make wishes with that he's seen children make on the beaches.

It's odd, how being almost happy can ache. At least Jaime thinks he is almost that. Happiness is a ghost he has only heard of, sees its blurry outline when he recalls how laughter gilded faces of his mother and sister. It's a grief, maybe, that echoes hurt, for time taking the feeling of happiness with careless hand and even more so for all the laughter that died with his mother that could've spun toward the sky, the way he imagines he could've loved Casterly Rock then, the way he might've belonged.

Being here, makes him all the more aware of it, like a gap between something trembling and warm (he thinks about how a week ago, he had ended up helping Old Jenny when her cow had twins and the sticky, slightly bloody warmth that had imprinted into his hands) in him and the emptiness so large it almost feels like a _thing_ has been drawn all the more sharply, marking the width newborn, wobbly thing must cross before it could even brush up against the void in him, risking being snuffed out. But maybe just that it exists before it dies, is enough.

He knows death like every other soldier does, but here on Tarth he's been learning of birth, too, (of calves and gardens, and dreams) and it scares him, some, with the inevitability it brings into the world. Jaime's never been good with constants - maybe because they've never been _that, not to him._ Not his mother, not even his twin's love and the sense of belonging she had weaved for him like a home of golden spider web (still clinging to his clothes in places he can't reach to brush them off), not honor or justice.

Only the search has remained.

Because it's never been wanderlust that chased him from city to port and across the sea and back again, though there had been a thrill in seeing new places and exploring every nook and cranny he could. Thrill and eventual disappointment, resignation even - no, not here either. Though he has hardly ever known what he's been searching for. Is, still. Because even now, here, where every step feels familiar and soothing like the sea's back and forth that he has always sought out since childhood, something is missing.

Jaime is content, though, more than ever and he is thinking of what he hasn't in over a decade: stopping. Staying. The thought had shot through his mind before a few times across the world, like a bird speeding across the imprint of sun in the sky, but it had never circled back, never sat down and never made a friend of him. Now, it's grown as familiar as his own worn-in work boots.

He has things here that he couldn't even imagine before, like the sense of marvel at how much the great oak tree has grown (since the last time, since the last time that never was) when he wandered up to Evenfall hall for the first time or the cutting clarity of things he cannot find words for when he's up in the cliffs, and things he never thought he even wanted, like people who smile and greet him, a cat that mills evenings into nights, and even a house that's one something short of home. (Just one, when it's never been anything less than an eternal list of indefinable.)

It used to make him angry, the way he knows homesickness as well as his own heartbeat, without ever knowing what it’s like to be at home, at peace. What kind of wretched thing runs in his blood that doesn’t know rest? What kind of love or hate chases him onward without direction, only with a want that he shouldn’t know, if he doesn’t know what the shape of what he’s missing? But the fall storms and quiet months of winter on Tarth have subdued the anger, drawn outlines in the sand that are almost an answer.

The sun breaks through the clouds then, pouring like rain in rare, bright streams onto the sea and he inhales deeply, as if he could take the light in him to dispel the smothering at the edges of his emptiness. And that's when he hears steps behind him. He half turns to see who it is, expecting one of the children though they're told not to play up here, but instead he falls - no, is pierced by, no, falls - into eyes impossibly familiar, when he knows he's never seen a blue like this, not even in his dreams that often spin blue and gold and gray across his heart.

But he knows them still, somehow, and if colors had sounds then this would have the soft bell of the final piece falling in place, of first notes of _welcome home_ hymn, of relief's sigh - oh. _Oh_ , it's you. You're here. (I've been waiting for you.)

Jaime draws a shuddering breath, tries to ground himself in taking in the rest of the person that makes him want to run away and toward them all at once.

It's a woman, taller than him he gauges even with the distance between them, and broader, too, with features arranged just shy of wrong, but not shy enough for most to not call her ugly, he guesses. (But he can't, because factuality doesn't stand a chance against the gale so high up.)

There's scowl on her face, maybe from the sun or the wind though he feels it's not, and wind has untangled pale strands from her braid to whip into her face and tug along in its rush. Freckles dot her face and for a moment, he believes he could find well-loved patterns in those and the rest, hidden by her dark blue coat and the slightly wrinkled shirt seen beneath the blue and gold brocade vest.

Jaime swallows and looks into her eyes again, trying to remember what is the image of the puzzle that feels complete now, but it's been locked away already. He finds that he doesn't care, he's just _happy,_ because not seeing it doesn't change the truth of it. Just yesterday, he had planted apple trees in his garden and the promise of the pale pink blooms against bowed branches that always seem to remember the weight of all the fruit they will ever bear, alone had been enough to make his step light all the way to this moment.

So he smiles at her.

"Lady Brienne Tarth, I presume."

**Author's Note:**

> If I was someone else, this would be first chapter. Or, at least, first part of series.
> 
> But if I was someone else, this would also be something else.
> 
> So, I hope you enjoyed this little thing that was purely driven by feelings and maybe, if sky breaks open again, will see another part, but maybe not.


End file.
